Yep, it does for me too, but I also get replies to my pings. Seems like a firewall blocking ICMP to me, possibly on that local Netgear box or the very machine you're pinging from. Can you ping other sites, say yahoo.com?

I have UFW set to the default Public profile and it works for me, so it seems the default rule set allows ICMP echo requests and replies. Unless you have changed the firewall rules I would guess the culprit is elsewhere. You could test it by turning the firewall off for a few seconds, pinging google again, and if still fails you'll know for sure.

I believe you're just pinging the internal interface of the router that connects you to the internet (because it was the first hop in your traceroute to google), which means your echo requests (and 192.168.254.254's replies) are never leaving your local LAN. It's when you try to ping something outside of your LAN that something goes wrong, and my guess is that that router is the culprit. It may have a built in firewall that's stomping on icmp. If you can get the model number from it, one might google it. Or you could just type http://192.168.254.254 into a web browser and see what you get.

The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer’s network connection.
If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

Well, if that device is controlled by your ISP you might be locked out of it. If you're really motivated about this you could call them and ask why you can't ping or traceroute past your router and see what they say.

Um, a bold move! Not quite what I would have suggested as you have blown away whatever configuration was previously there. You should be able to get into it now and make sure you still have some kind of firewall in place.

Well I'm a bit uncomfortable dishing out firewall advice as I'm not an expert. I didn't know we were going to wind up here! But that said, I would start with typical/medium, do your ping and Thunderbird tests, and then modify from there if needed. I would NOT leave it at Low or None even if that breaks ping and Thunderbird.